How can you attract more visitors from China? (Part 1)
Who are your Target Customers?
This article is part 1 in a series on Digital Marketing for the Chinese tourism market.
Part 1: Who are your Target Customers? (Customer Segmentation)
Part 2: Develop your Customer Personas
As a digital marketer in Tourism industry, this is one of the most common question I get at conferences and Twitter tweet chats. It is easy to see why this is top of mind for marketers. With the rise of nouveau riche in China, The New Yorker coined this to be the age of The Golden Generation.
The 2015 statistics reported by China National Tourism Administration are jaw dropping:
- 109 million+ outbound trips in 2015
- Overseas spending DOUBLED from $100 billion to $200 billion
- Year-on-Year growth of 19.5% from 2014 to 2015
“Several governments around the world are asking the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) the best way to attract more visitors from China… the First World Conference on Tourism for Development [will take place] in Beijing between May 18 and 21, 2016.” - Secretary General Taleb Rifai
Tourism boards, destination marketing organizations and businesses in tourism and hospitality industry can no longer afford to lose out on China! To attract more visitors from China, we need to get back to the basics:
Who Are Your Target Customers?
As you would expect from a country with over 1.3billion people, there are countless ways to slice and dice your customers. Where do you start?
Should you segment by demographics: age, gender, income level, marital status, and current city? Or do you segment by behaviors: frequency of travel, brand loyalty, purpose of travel (business trips, leisure or family vacation), benefits sought (to relax, shop or take brag-worthy photos)? Depending on the nature of your business, you may choose either or combination of the above factors.
Let’s use age + martial status + purpose as factors for our customer segmentation:
- Family (Age: mix | Martial status: married | Purpose: family time)
- Students (Age: <24 | Martial status: single | Purpose: to study, or vacation during school holidays)
- Couples (Age: 18–30 | Martial status: dating or engaged | Purpose: romantic getaway)
- Flashpackers (Age: varies | Martial status: varies | Purpose: immersive experience, adventures)
At first glance, customer segmentation may seem pretty straightforward. Now here’s the caveat… cultural and social context. Let me expand on the four types of Chinese tourists above:
- Family
“About 600,000 Chinese a year die from working too hard” — Phoenix TV
There’s a stereotype that Chinese workers rise before dawn, ushers off to work only to return home way past midnight. This perception is rooted in the high-stress, ultra-competitive reality of Chinese culture. In fact, China faces an epidemic of over-working and people are literally dying at their desks. While the French enjoys up to 36 paid vacation days/year, their Chinese counterparts gets less than half — 16 days/year, or “5 days for employees who have accumulatively worked for 1–10 years. ”
Now, can you begin to understand why many Chinese tourists arrive by the busloads, and seem to have an insanely packed tour schedule? Some tour guides literally said to me that Chinese people must be crazy, because they will get on the bus at 6am, have meals on the go, tour 5–7 attractions, fit in shopping time daily for 3–5days, AND call that a vacation.
When Chinese families travel abroad, they want a stress-free experience. For example, they prefer hotels equipped with a pool or other kid-friendly entertainment, ideally located close to major attractions.
2. Students
“It’s Better to Travel 10000 Miles Than Read 10000 Books” — ancient Chinese proverb
In January 2016, China officially launched their revised two-child policy for married couples. For nearly 40 years since 1978, China has implemented the one-child policy as a population control policy. The result? Overwhelming gender imbalance, a generation of “Little Emperors” and an aging economy. To ensure their only child will have a bright and successful future, Chinese parents are willing to invest 20% — 25% of their annual spending on education!
Starting from age 5 or 6, some parents will take their kindergarten child on “Ivy School Tours” to visit top universities like Harvard, MIT, Oxford, and Cambridge. Summer camps abroad, exchange programs, volunteer trips, the list rolls on. By age 18, many Chinese students move abroad for higher education in top-tier universities. They are seasoned travelers seeking to explore their new country during school holidays, starting with major cities like New York, Los Angeles, London. Working through their bucket list, Chinese students will start seeking more culturally immersive experience off the beaten bath.
3. Couples
“China’s wedding industry is an $80 billion behemoth, fueled by an emphasis on outward display and the concentration of family resources on the one-child generation.” — Jing Daily
There’s a famous Chinese proverb: 门当户对 [ méndānghùduì ], that a marriage should be between families of equal social rank. A Chinese wedding symbolizes the joining of two families, and an opportunity to cement social-economic status. It is a Chinese custom for couples to have their wedding photos taken months before they are married, rather than on the day of the nuptials. These photos are featured on wedding invitations, wedding day display and guest-books. With over $80billion on the table, it’s no wonder that luxury brands are cashing in on China’s wedding industry.
In another word, young Chinese couples are planning trips for destination wedding photoshoots, honeymoon and romantic escapes. From pledging their love on Pont des Arts in Paris to riding the gondolas in Venice, they are looking to create romantic memories abroad.
4. Flashpackers
“Flashpacking is a term used to describe backpackers who upscale their travels… they stay in nicer digs, carry fancy electronics, tend to be a bit older, have a bit more money to spend…” — Nomadic Matt
Internet, smartphones, our connectedness to the world has fundamentally changed the face of travel. Instead of roughing it in hostels with Lonely Planet’s Traveling on a Shoestring as your trusted guide, today’s travelers are armed with a plethora of electronic devices, blogs and review sites. Today’s Chinese flashpackers are even more connected than you can imagine:
That’s right, take a moment for these numbers to sink in.
On average, Chinese internet users:
- spend 3 hr 45 mins online/ day via desktops or tablets
- spend 2 hr 46 mins online/day via Mobile
- > 49% of Chinese population are active internet users (approx. 668 million people)
- 659 million active Social Media users (top platforms: QQ, WeChat/Weixin, Sina Weibo) *remember, Facebook is banned in China
You can dig into the numbers with this handy report compiled by We Are Social, a social media agency based in Singapore.
Chinese flashpackers are ditching organized tours for immersive experience, traveling to exotic destinations worthy of once-in-a-lifetime adventures. They will gladly stay in a hostel to meet other travelers, or a luxury 5-star safari in the Serengeti for front-row seat viewing of the wildebeest migration.
If you’ve taken the time to read through the entire post, thank you!
I hope this has given you some insights into why it is important to understand cultural and social context as part of your customer segmentation exercise. Every marketing strategy should start with the customers, and this is especially true when you want to attract visitors from abroad! Your customers may not share your values, aspirations or definition of success, and understanding these drivers will help you engage Chinese visitors more effectively.
In Part 2: Develop your Customer Personas, we will work on developing your customer personas to bring your strategy to life.
Let me know if you have any questions in the comments below , and let me know how you have segmented your target customers in the past? Let’s keep the conversation going on Twitter, where I share my thoughts on Digital Marketing @BestCapeTownSA .
